viroid
noun
viroid is a noun meaning “Any of many short sections of RNA, but without the protein coat typical of viruses (the capsid), that are plant pathogens” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-I-R-O-I-D, and it appears about once in every 48 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of viroid is viroids.
What does viroid mean?
noun
- 1
Any of many short sections of RNA, but without the protein coat typical of viruses (the capsid), that are plant pathogens.
- 2
Any of certain defective viruses, such as hepatitis D, a human pathogen.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of viroid
- viroids plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is viroid?
Viroid appears about once in every 48 million words in written English, the 214,628th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Viroid in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense certain defective viruses:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | viroïde |
| Portuguese | viroide |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does viroid come from?
From virus + -oid.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).